Empty Frames
by fulfilled
Summary: Even though it's the right thing, it's not the easy thing. Post ep for Bridesmaids Revisited.


**A/N: ** This is sort of a companion story to Moving Day--you don't need to read that one first, but this is the "after" to its "before," so it might help get the context.

When she comes back to pack her things, he's just leaving the apartment, and she knows that he's doing it on purpose. Waiting to "accidentally" cross paths, running "late," hoping for a conversation, a reconsideration. She can see it in his face—as he shuts the door behind him, there's the same look of utter defeat that crossed his face at the wedding. The crack in his composure that he can't hide. The wave of reality that crashes over him, letting her know that he knows damn well that his charm isn't going to fix it this time.

She's not going to give in this time, though, so she squares her shoulders, lifts her chin, and breezes past him without an acknowledgement. Keeps a bright smile on her face and the chipper conversation on her phone. Can Luke bring the truck? she asks her mother. You're sure he doesn't mind helping me? The tone is bright, buoyant, carefree. Moving out of their place isn't destroying her—in fact, she couldn't care less.

Until he leaves. Then she finishes the conversation quickly and almost abruptly, promising to have boxes ready to load into the truck, and hangs up, dropping the phone on the couch as though it's suddenly become too heavy.

Anger propels her; she throws things into boxes in much the same manner as they arrived. Haphazardly, no thoughtgiven toorganization or careful packing. Wasn't it only last week that she was unpacking this same mess, packed exactly the same way?

She wants to wallow, but that will come later. Right now, she lives in the righteous indignation that lets her blow through the apartment in a daze. Looking back, she won't remember most of today. It's just one of those days that changes everything, but the details become fuzzy and worn around the edges in no time at all. Self-preservation, perhaps. This is nothing that she wants to re-live; nothing that she wants to remember. It hurts, more than the rest of them put together. More than it did before.

Until. She reaches the living room and wraps her framed pictures in t-shirts before tossing them into boxes—she's not going to ruin her own stuff because she's angry with him. Everything else may get thrown around and maybe even broken, but these are her past. These anchor her to her journey, and they're not going to be broken because of him.

And then, there it is. The jump—the picture of them mid-air, silhouetted against a blue sky and angular scaffold, all billows and air and lightness against the solid realities of the structure. She stops, stares. Can't move. This, of all things, paralyzes her, and for the first time since yesterday, she breaks down. Piece by piece, her body betrays her; the resolve crumbles, and with it, so does she. Her eyes fill, her cheeks turn red, her chin trembles, her shoulders shake, and finally, a single wail escapes her, and she crumples onto the ground at the foot of their—his—bed.

It isn't supposed to hurt like this.

She has no idea how long she sits, curled up, knees hugged to her chest, before the door bursts open and a loud, accented voice fills the room, announcing his presence before he enters.

She hears him calling, asking where they are, why he hasn't seen either of them in a few days, wondering whether they want to go to the pub, if he can use their bathroom, why the liquor cabinet isn't better stocked. It's a nonstop monologue, a conversation with no need for a second party, which stops mid-sentence the instant he sees her.

Her head stays buried in her arms; he stands in the middle of the room, looks around at the boxes. Swears, a single word puncturing the silence. Awkward silence—more vulnerable than either cares to be with the other. She stands, wipes her face, takes a deep breath.

I should help, he says.

They smile weakly. My own personal moving man, she responds.

Are you... he trails off. Will you be... can't finish the sentence. Is everything...

I'll be okay. Shakes her head. Nods. I think. Tears threaten to spill over again.

He shifts, foot to foot, mutters. Glib, smooth words fail him, but without them, he has nothing, so he leaves, promising to call, to check on her again. Empty words—well-meaning, she knows, but it's hard to put him in the middle. She'll go back to the beginning, back to Paris, back to Lane. Back to the people who knew her when, and she'll just see the others in passing. A class here, a party at her grandparents' there. Polite conversation, no hard feelings, but not much in common anymore. No, not that. There are still things in common, but that's not enough. She can't be the one to put them in the middle.

He leaves, she sits. The place will be empty for the rest of the day—even though she said "until one," she saw the look in his eyes; the one that tells her that he'll wait. Won't take a chance on seeing her again today. Once was enough.

So she waits, tears rolling down her face, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, for her mother to come and help her pack her things and take them away, to yet another house that refuses to become a home.

* * *

He stands outside the door of the apartment for a very long time before inserting his key into the lock and opening the door. It just seems too... the right adjective escapes him; he just knows that he doesn't want to go in. Hates the thought of the empty spaces on the walls, the bookshelves, the kitchen cupboards, the closet.

He isn't used to things in his life being too good to be true. His life is good, and it's real. The things that cause others to stare open-mouthed and marvel at the things he takes for granted are just that—the things he takes for granted. He knows he's privileged and has never tried to pretend that his life is "normal" by anyone else's standards, but for him, getting what he wants iis/i normal. He works hard enough, but combining the amount of work that anynormal person coulddowith his name and money is enough to open just about any door.

She has always been the one thing that'stoo good to be true, and maybe that's why he's fought so hard. Every time, the logical thing would be to walk away, he's been the one to come back. She tries to give him an out every time, but he can never bring himself to take it. For the first time in his dating history, he's the one who has pushed them to the next level every time. Dating exclusively, getting back together, moving in... it's all been his initiative, and that scares the hell out of him. Even after a year, he still isn't used to caring this much about her.

Finally, he turns the key in the lock and opens the door. If he closes his eyes, he can almost believe that everything is still the same—it still smells like them: the lingering scent of coffee, a hint of his cologne and her perfume, an undertone of the fireplace. She can reclaim everything she owns, but her presence can't be erased within a three-hour window.

He opens his eyes as he eases the door shut behind himself, letting it click softly. "Honey, I'm home." The joke, the term of endearment that neither one uses any other time, except when they walk in the door. He says it softly, wanting desperately to see her sitting in the living room, textbooks open in front of her, three pens stuck into a ponytail, a highlighter sticking out of her mouth. Waiting for her face to pop up over the back of the couch, grinning; wanting her to come padding, sock-foot, over to the door to give him a kiss, stretching as she walks. Perfect timing, she'd say. I needed a study break anyways. Dinner? he'd suggest. Need you ask? she'd retort.

Instead, he opens his eyes to blank spots everywhere. Bookshelves half empty. The extra unit they'd picked out together, still there, but completely empty. Shelves of cd's and dvd's that look like a very selective thief has broken in and picked through the collection. The fine layer of dust on the mantle and the coffee table filled with clean spots where her framed pictures sat. Pictures of her and her mother, with her best friend, of home, gone. The only ones remaining are the ones she convinced him to frame.

You need something up there, she had said, ignoring his protests that he hates his family. You've got things to remember. People to celebrate. It's our house. The pictures shouldn't be just of me.

He can't say no to her, so there are pictures of him and his sister as children; of the three stooges... musketeers... wise guys... blind mice—she has referred to them as all of the above—as young teens and again as young men.

The frames that used to hold pictures of the two of them are there, but they're empty. Here, on the wall, an eleven-by-fourteen blow-up of a picture that someone took of the two of them, hands clasped, eyes squeezed shut, in mid-air between the scaffolding above and the ground below. Her dress billows out beneath her and the wrap around her neck trails above; the tails of his tuxedo jacket are flying. They're terrified, exhilarated, fearless. Across the room, the frame that used to house an eight-by-ten that the professional photographer her grandmother hired took at her twenty-first birthday party. A formal pose, but it captures a half-smirk on each of their faces, a merging, even then; their personalities rubbing off on each other. He hates to think what she's done with them, hates the empty frames even more than the empty spots where her frames used to sit.

He sighs and takes off his coat, draping it over a chair rather than opening the closet to see what's missing. He doesn't want to be here—alone, at least—yet he doesn't want to go out and face anyone, and in some twisted way, he's getting some comfort being here, even though she isn't. It sucks. It hurts. He can't stand the fact that she makes him feel helpless, yet he wants to stay in this very place that reminds him of what he's lost. Again.

What will it take this time? All he wants is for someone to tell him how to fix it, because whatever it is, he'll do it. He'll say it. He'll be it.

The phone rings, but he's frozen. Doesn't want to answer, has already turned off his cell. Hears her voice fill the apartment, does a double take before he remembers that it's just the answering machine. Hi, you've reached Logan and Rory. We're out; leave a message, and we'll call back.

He doesn't bother to keep listening as Finn rambles on and on after the beep. Something about tears, and a jackass, and moving, and how, what, why, details, drinking, forget... He deletes the message as soon as it's finished—doesn't want to go out, doesn't want to hear about it. Whatever it is that Finn's going on about, it can wait until later.

As he stands by the phone, deleting most messages, writing down the ones for her (the ones he'll take to the paper and leave anonymously on her desk), hesees the post-it notes all over the house, terse yellow reminders, written in an angry hand. On the answering machine: "Change this." On the washing machine, still full of her wet clothes that never got put into the dryer the day before: "I'll get these later." On the stack of incoming mail by the door: "Bring my mail to the paper." In the bathroom cupboard, on the shelf where he keeps his razor, a pink one replaces it: "Yours is better. I took it."

On that last one, he swears there's a smudge of ink, but whether it's smudged from a tear or a sweaty hand or a drip from the faucet, he can't tell.


End file.
